Wednesday, August 29, 2007

A few small notes about Bogotá / Unas noticas sobre Bogotá

I’ve mentioned before that Bogotá is a sprawling city—the official population of greater Bogotá is around 6,800,000, nearly 17% of the population of Colombia. It has its problems, but for me—a city boy—it also has its fascinations. It’s a truly cosmopolitan city, a real metropolis, filled with life and energy. Here are a few short notes about this city

On one of the busiest streets of downtown Bogotá, there are several plaques on the wall at the spot where in April of 1948 Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was murdered. This was a critical moment in the history of modern Colombia. Gaitán was an important popular leader (often called “populist”), and was likely to be elected president of Colombia. His murder unleashed a ten-year-long wave of violence, and it’s not unreasonable to trace the armed conflict that shakes Colombia today to that period.

The importance of the murder is hard to overestimate. It’s worth keeping in mind that 1948 was also a period of intense anti-communism on the part of the US government, the period when the Cold War was taking shape and the US was pushing anti-communism in Latin America. On one hand, some argue that the young Fidel Castro, who was in Bogotá for a youth conference and had an appointment with Gaitán that very day, was convinced by events in Colombia of the necessity of armed struggle. On the other, though the motives behind the murder have never been definitively proven, there are some, including Gaitán’s daughter, who have argued that the CIA was behind the crime. Gaitán’s importance is recognized in the fact that the 1000-peso bill, the most common bill, has a picture of him, with a popular rally in the background.

So it seems ironic that right near the spot, actually in the corner with another very busy street, is a McDonald’s restaurant. I suppose it’s possible that I’m making too much of this, but it seems to me to lack historical and cultural sensitivity to put it right there.

Of course, on the other side of the plaques, someone was selling lottery tickets…

The whole situation was improved by the arrival of a pastry delivery truck from the same era.

Finally, when I asked a man who was obviously explaining the plaques to some friends what he thought about the juxtaposition of the spot and McDonald’s, he answered, apparently taking me for a Colombian, “I’m not exactly sure what your question is about, but I can tell you that the gringos just come here and put there things wherever they want!”

Recently the names and numbers of streets and buildings were revised. There’s nothing so strange in that, and indeed, the new system makes it very easy to figure out from an address where a building is located. There’s a pretty systematic grid, and it’s all very rational and helpful. But because of the changes, many street addresses also changed. That could lead to confusion. So for some period of time, buildings are supposed to display both their new addresses and their old addresses, with a line through them. In some places, even the street signs are accompanied by the old signs with the line through them. It all makes sense, but somehow I find it amusing.

Bicycles in the National University / Bicicletas en la Universidad Nacional

I went to the rather extensive campus of the National University to check out the room where I’m going to give a major talk on El Chocó. It’s an interesting campus. As one would expect, there were a number of spray-painted slogans on the walls—I’ll just show you a couple that I particularly liked.

One thing I noticed was that some people were riding bicycles. That made sense; there are some long distances to cover. But what was interesting was that the bikes had the colors of the National University, and even said “National University>” Could it be that the folks are so proud of their school that they paint their bikes? I doubt it. As I approached a gate, I realized what was going on—there were people leaving bikes in a rack. I asked one of the security guards if they were for rent. But no—there they are; you can take one and when you’re done with it, you leave it. That seems very civilized to me.

I’ve mentioned before that Bogotá is a city of little commercial districts—a few blocks long. There are streets where you’ll find a line of shops that for example, sell bicycles, a district of pet stores, another of veterinary and pet supplies, another of safety vests that motorcycle riders must wear. There’s a district of shops that sell sheet plastic for wrapping large and small parcels. There’s another district of second-hand clothing shops, and another of pawnshops. Where I stay there’s a district of stores that sell parts for washing machines and other electric appliances, and one of electrical supplies and replacement parts, and another where they sell luggage. (I’ll try to get some pictures of this up later)

Not far away there’s a computer and other high-tech equipment district. They even very recently opened a high-tech shopping center—an enclosed mall—lots of small shops where they sell computers, PDAs, cell phones, cameras, hard disks, printers, etc., and parts, and supplies—CDs and DVDs, memory, etc. (sky-high prices, of course). This is not like the malls we’d see in the US, filled with chain stores and big box stores (tough those also exist here, as do big department stores and huge supermarkets); it’s much more on the model of a traditional market that you’d find in any Latin American city (and many European cities for that matter—and I remember the Essex Street and Morris Avenue markets and others in new York—they’re still there, but they’ve seen better days), except that instead of stall selling food or clothing, there are tiny stores selling all this high-tech stuff.

But perhaps the most interesting district I’ve seen until now is a well-known one in the barrio of San Andresito— I was interested in seeing the specialty of the area, which I had heard about, and a young friend of mine called and told me she was going there, did I want to go along? You bet!

In San Andresito there are a few one-story shopping centers. Again, they are like markets. But these are particular markets. They have a specialized product; the specialty is pirated music CDs and movie DVDs. There are dozens of stands. Some of them concentrate on certain kinds of music—Cuban son, for example—though most of them are stocked with the most popular forms of music here: salsa, vallenato, norteño, and general pop and rock, including heavy metal. My shopping companion found a particular stand she was looking for to order a bunch of salsa videos. Out of curiosity, I asked them about some Argentine political folk musicians I’m interested in; they had never heard of them. But we asked around, and finally, someone told us which stand to go to, and sure enough, the guy knew about the music, had some on hand, and would be happy to take my orders in the future…

In the movie area, we saw pirate DVDs of current movies—I’ve been told that those are not good copies, but that once movies go into DVD distribution, you can get high-quality pirate copies. There, we asked about some less popular movies, an we were directed to the stand that specializes in “classics.”

I was also told that before Christmas, the police come and clean these folks out—I suppose it’s when the legal merchants most feel the competition.

Guinea pig races / Carreras de curíesAnother curiosity. In the very heart of downtown Bogotá, we came across this man, making some money by running guinea pig races. He would line up his three guinea pigs at perhaps 15 feet from a semi-circle of overturned dishes, and you could bet on which dish the first or second guinea pig would enter. The man would call out whether the first or second guinea pig would win, and he would tell the animals (voice only) when it was time to start running, which they did, apparently eager to get into one of the shelters. I bet my 200 pesos (about 10 cents US), but lost…

It’s easy to get lost in the curious, humorous or fascinating details of the face that the city presents us. But we need to remember that there are a lot of people struggling to survive in and around Bogotá. Between 1985 and 2006, about 667,000 people arrived in the cities of Bogotá and Soacha displaced by the violence. Many of these people continue being affected by the violence, and by the lack of adequate public services and human assistance.

In addition, there is classic urban poverty here. I like to walk, and I try to take a walk around where I’m staying once or twice a day. Right near is a sort of disreputable area—in addition to normal shops, there are bars and cafés of a questionable character (to be gentle about it). But what’s worse, there are some people sleeping on the sidewalk, and garbage pickers, and a somewhat generous portion of obviously crazy people wandering the sidewalks.

2 comments:

would you have, a rough map of Colombia to post? Locating Bogotá and El Chocó - Quibdó would help us follow you around.

And, on another vein, being as self-effacing as you are, you show little of your own thoughts on the community, the culture, that you are studying. So, could you, please, inspect yourself a little bit, and tell us how has your view of Quibdó been evolving since your first encounter? What appeared as most striking on first sight, and what is growing as most significant as you gather deeper knowledge of what Quibdoans do care about?